T'is The Season....

.....to be BUSY!!  Hi folks!  How is everyone doing?  Are you all caught up in the craziness that is December just like me?  Between work, Christmas shopping, hockey, dance and the end of Sarah's volleyball season I've barely had time time sit at the computer, which I am sure is the case in general.  Instead of posting here I decided to use that time to continue reading all your blogs.  I haven't been commenting as much, but I have been keeping myself up to date with you guys!

On Sunday Noah's hockey team had a game in a border city.  Whenever we play there I plan a quick trip across the border for a little shopping.  This time we only hit Target because it had been raining pretty heavily all day and we were afraid it would freeze before long.  Getting stuck in the States wouldn't be such a bad thing; just extra money for us that could be used in other areas right now.  :)  We actually went to Panera first because, as is the case more often than not lately, Noah was starving.  That kid eats more than me these days and is still only weighs 59lbs at almost 10yrs old!  LOL  Because I'm pretty much gluten free, sandwiches were out for me.  I went with the Chopped Chicken BBQ Salad with a side of potato chips:

This was delicious!  I already used some of the ingredients in this as an idea for dinner.  More on that to follow...I pretty much found everything at Target that I wanted to.  I can't post everything, though, because some of the items are gifts!  Here are the edible goodies I bought:

Anyone know how to rotate photos in blogger?  I don't have WLW at work and can't figure out how to do it!  DOH!!  If you can help leave me a comment, please & thank you!  Jason LOVES the Archer Farms corn & black bean salsa!  I've had to hide those Mounds bars and Fage yogurts from my son...AKA...bottomless pit!

I also managed to stick to my meal plan last week.  Monday was pizza night.  While the fam had some oven ready pizza, I made a pizza for me using Udi's GF pizza crust.  I've never tried it before and really enjoyed it!  My toppings included a (leftover) GF hotdog, spinach and cheddar cheese.  I used salsa as my sauce:

Next time I will cut back on the baking time.  The crust got a little too crisp for me, but that was my fault, not the product. (*note: I bought these Udi's pizza crusts on my own).  Here's a picture I took of the leftovers that I enjoyed for lunch the next day:

Tuesday we had a FREE night!  I took the opportunity to roast a chicken with onions and garlic for dinner.  I also made steamed broccoli & quinoa to go along with it.

That's mango chutney on my plate beside the chicken.  ;)  On Wednesday we were out of town until 7pm.  Knowing this would be the case I made and baked off meatballs Tuesday for subs.  All I had to do when we got home was heat them with tomato sauce, toast the buns and melt the cheese.  The fam had sub buns while I ate mine on a GF burger bun:

Thursday was quick and simple; turkey sausage, brown rice & peas;

The plan was to have chicken stir fry on Friday, but we ended up at Boston Pizza after a bit of Christmas shopping.  I went with a personal Szechuan on GF crust.

I took one bite of this and realized that instead of the Szechuan sauce that's suppose to come with this pizza, it was plain old tomato.  Instead of sending it back and waiting for another pizza, I just had the server bring me a ramekin of the sauce and I put it on myself.  :/  Seeing as I already had the chicken out of the freezer, we enjoyed our stir fry Saturday night!

As you can see, there is some rice spiral pasta on the side there.  I also made sure I got more veg than chicken.  I'll leave the fam to the meat!  LOL  And that's that for my "meals of the week"!  I gotta admit, I can't wait to get some natural light again at dinner time!  All my pictures look so blah.  :(

I don't really have a set plan for this week.  From Sunday to Saturday Noah is on the ice every night but Thursday, so I'm kinda winging it.  I have a loose idea of what I'll be making each day, but don't want to commit to it.  I'll leave you all with a photo of the kids school pics!

Man, they are growing so FAST!!  One last little thing!  I tried to post this yesterday, but Blogger was behaving badly!!

Bye for now!!

Marineland, Lululemon & Panera

Hey, hey, hey!  What’s up?   I’m coming at you from day 3 of vacation.  I’m starting to feel pretty darned relaxed.  Yesterday we had so much fun on our travels.  I started the morning out right with a hefty bowl of oats:

• 1 cup water
• 1/2 cup Quaker oats
• cinnamon
• chia flour
• craisins, coconut butter, pecans and chocolate sauce

We were on the road by 10:30 to our destination which was almost 2hrs away:
MARINELAND!!!  My kids have been before but not me.  The attractions at the park are spread out so we did a lot of walking but once you see the photos I took you’ll understand why I felt it was totally worth the aching knees I had by the time we left!  Check it out;
I loved, loved all the sea life/animals we saw!!  I enjoyed a vanilla soft serve at one point:
I don’t know if it was because it’s been ages since I’ve had one of these or it was just so perfect on a hot day, but I enjoyed this baby immensely!  The kids had a blast on a bunch of rides. I took before, during and after shots of them on the kid size drop zone…
For those of you out there with kidlets, do they like rides?  Mine love them!  We arrived home just after 7pm and heated leftover Chinese for dinner.  I didn’t bother with another photo, though.  Because I was feeling stiff and achy I thought it best to go for a bit of a walk to try and loosen up some.  I took this little bugger with me;
 
I just can’t resist that face!  ;)  As I’m sure you can imagine, I slept like a rock!  I was up and at it by 8am, though, because I had plans to head into the GTA (greater Toronto area) for some shopping and wanted to get there well before lunch.  Breakfast was overnight oats.  
I mixed 1/2 a cup of oats with a 1/2 cup each USAB & Boathouse mocha cappuccino, 2 tbsp of chia seeds and cinnamon.  I added walnuts this morning.   
I think the key to me liking overnight oats is leaving the flavour simple.  If I try to add too much it usually finds its way into the garbage.
So, my 2 main reasons for venturing 45 minutes out of my way to shop?  Lululemon and Panera!  Between DD, my hubby and I, we did some serious damage to the Visa.  I only took one picture in the change room before I totally forgot about the camera. 
I bought what you see here plus another tank and a pair of capri’s.  I’ll take a picture of those when I wear them.  I love the style of tank in the picture!  This is my second one…the other is pink and grey striped.  We cruised around the mall for a bit but I wasn’t interested in buying anything else.  By 12:30 we were across the street at Panera.  I ordered the strawberry poppy seed salad and Mediterranean veggie sandwich with and apple for my lunch:    
While we were enjoying our food an employee came around with cinnamon coffee cake samples. 
It was awesome!  I have my fingers and toes crossed that since I live in a university town, a Panera will soon make it’s way to my stomping ground! 
Not long after arriving home I changed into my workout clothes and busted out levels 1 & 2 of the 30 Day Shred.  Holy, kick ass!  I was so hot my legs were sweating!!  Towards the end of level 2 I was starting to question my sanity.  LOL  But I had my eye on the prize and as soon as I showered (for the second time today!!) I rewarded myself for a job well done with a Starbucks via iced coffee with a wee bit of cream:
I sucked this back so fast I hardly tasted it!  I read the rest of the afternoon away.  Eventually, the fam got hungry.  I did not.  I kept my meal VERY light with some quinoa and baked zucchini with coconut mango sauce.
I also ate the last 3 pieces of my chocolate bar.
Yuma, yuma!  A storm is blowing in and I hope that we don’t lose the satellite signal because SYTYCD is one at 8.  I’d hate to miss it!  So tell me, what exciting things have you been up to so far this week??
Bye for now!!

North And South

HI! I’m back! The past 2 days have been spent fully enjoying the gorgeous weather Mother Nature has blessed us with and some adventures, too. I’ll keep this post limited to Wednesday and Thursday then I’ll combine today (Friday) and Saturday. This way you won’t have to plough through a novel.

WEDNESDAY

I was up bright and early to get DS to hockey camp. This was also the day we road tripped south to Buffalo. I started my morning with a bowl of Alpen cereal:

This is a half cup each of the cereal and USVAB. I heated it in the microwave for 1min, 30sec. I’m really glad I decided to buy this because it really tasty.

We were on the road by 8:45 and seeing as doorstep to (Target) doorstep is 2hrs, I figured we’d be there by 11am. HA! 45 minutes into the drive we got stuck in this:

for 1.5hrs because of this:

*SHIVER* Apparently this accident had happened almost 5hrs before we passed it. All 4 lanes of the highway were closed with vehicles only able to pass on the shoulder. Once we passed this the highway looked much better:

And finally, WAY behind schedule, we were at the border!

Hello, USA! The rest of the day went off without a hitch. And really, my “schedule” was totally flexible so all was good. Our first stop, seeing as it was 12:30, was Panera for some lunch. I felt like something fresh and cool so I went with the Mediterranean veggie sandwich:

I’ve had this before and have always enjoyed it. YUM! Target is right next door so that was our next stop. I was happy to see that they now carry Chobani! I’ve always only been able to find it in Michigan. After Target was Kohl’s, then Wegman’s. Seeing as I knew we’d be back too late for my Pilate’s class (due to the traffic setback) we decided to stop at the outlet malls to kill a bit more time so that we weren’t travelling home during rush hour traffic. At some point between stores I ate my apple from Panera:

And before leaving Wegman’s we got ourselves some beverages. DD had a chocolate milk and I had a green tea latte.

Brutal picture, I know, but this was all that was left by the time we were stopped long enough for me to snap one! LOL…. Here we are getting ready to hit the road.

We rolled into the driveway at 7pm exhausted and hungry. I made us some quick turkey and Swiss sandwiches on Arnold Thins, toasted then topped with spinach.

After eating I sorted through all the goodies I bought. Here’s the grub which is not sorted by store at all!

I’m still so excited about some of this stuff. The coconut milk, the Chobani, caramel Oikos, frozen cherries (why we don’t have frozen cherries in my area is beyond me), coconut kisses and dark chocolate Easter eggs. *sigh* I bought some clothes, too!

The purple top, patterned top and necklace were bought with the b-day money my friend gave me. Told you I would stick to my promise and not buy food with the cash!! Hehe! I’m practically living in the GAP hoodie. Can you believe that for the past few years, I’ve been borrowing DD’s sweaters??? I also bought a few things for the house but my fave by far are these plates.

Are you detecting a slight colour scheme? HA! I’ve been eyeing up these plates the last 4 or 5 times I’ve been to Kohl’s and finally found them on sale! Love them…

I’m pretty sure I had a bowl of cereal before bed, too, but I can’t seem to find the picture of it. Oh, well….

THURSDAY

Once again, we had to get DS to hockey camp. He wasn’t on the ice until 9:30 so it wasn’t as early a morning. That left me lots of time to enjoy a spectacular bowl of oats!!! This is my version of Starbuck’s new beverage. Dark chocolate cherry mocha oats!! Oh, yes I did!

• 1/2 cup each brewed coffee and water
• 1/2 cup Quaker oats
• 2 dark chocolate Easter eggs, chopped
• thawed cherries

Oh. My. Gawd. To die for!!!! I mixed it all up after the photo shoot and oh’d & ah’d after each bite.

After dropping my boy off we grabbed a coffee for my hubby seeing as we were down the street from his work, the hightailed it north to the St. Jacobs Market. There was a vendor there selling homemade granola. DD and I sampled some and it was some of the best granola I’ve ever tasted. This is the name of it.

The bags she was selling were made the night before with all natural ingredients:

I bought a bag of the maple walnut granola. I think it’ll be great on yogurt! I also left with some berries and pork kabobs for dinner. On our way out we caught the horses and trolley that take you for a tour of St. Jacobs, all for a pretty penny! But the horses are beautiful.

Next we went into town to browse the many stores. I had planned on getting lunch there, which we did, but there was only one restaurant open. The rest were still closed for the season. It was a pretty decent place and DD ate for $2 which was a March Break promo they were running, but the place was packed. We had a half hour wait for a table. C’est la vie. I did have a great turkey sandwich:

Check this beauty out!

The potato wedges were to die for as well. Light and fluffy, no grease in sight. I ate the whole sandwich but only made it through half the fries before I was full. DD got this monster sized cookie with her meal which I ate a quarter of.

We had some downtime before we had to get DS and I used it to relax a bit. Dinner was the kabobs and steamed broccoli, all on a new purple plate!

DS was quite impressed when he sat down to dinner. ;) I only ate half the meat you see on the plate. I was still pretty full from lunch! I made it to my 6:15 Pilate’s class which was wonderful for my achy legs, thanks to sitting in the Jeep for hours and hours. HA! When I came home I kicked back with a caramel Oikos. Um….YUM!!!! Loved it! Or rather, my sweet tooth loved it. I’m thinking it’d be great to dunk fruit into. Yeah.

I read some magazines, watched some CSI and Cold Case and then hit the sack. So I’ll end this here. To be continued…..

Bye for now!!